Based on a true story, The Lady in the Van is a well-acted but somewhat wearying exercise in British whimsy.

Bonnaire, whose films include "Vagabond" and "Monsieur Hire," gets Helene just right, registering her joys and disappointments with finesse.

FOR ABOUT HALF its length, City Slickers is a close-to-perfect movie comedy...Crystal, Stern and Kirby are good comedians, but they fall apart when the script does. Only cinematographer Dean Semler (''Dances With Wolves'') has his vision, and the film looks great from start to finish.

If you've ever seen anything like A Town Called Panic, you either made it yourself or you dreamed it.

Davis Guggenheim, the St. Louis director who won an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth," mines less controversial material this time around.

The overt sexuality of Madonna's stage show, particularly the lengthy exercise in self-stimulation called Like a Virgin, as well as the sometimes startling bluntness of her talk, keeps the movie from being totally boring. But this kind of trash can only sustain itself for so long - for most of us, about as long as it takes to get through the line at a supermarket. [17 May 1991, p.3F]

To ensure customer loyalty, Hollywood should promote more movies about workaday life in the provinces, but until there's a new wave of midcoast comedies, Cedar Rapids is the big kahuna.

Most of the credit for this successful effort goes to Miller, who simply pointed a camera at Levitch for hours and stayed out of the way. This laid-back direction helps Miller avoid that self-conscious "documentary" seriousness, edgy shots and editing that tells the audience that this is all so very important. [18 Dec 1998, p.E3]

With its exploded notions of heroism, torture-rack dramatics and kamikaze gusto, it's a fiendishly entertaining flick.

An entertaining and sometimes exceptional look at the short life of the man who singlehandedly brought about the boom of martial arts in this country. Starring Jason Scott Lee (no relation), "Dragon" covers Lee's life from his early days in Hong Kong to his final scene from "Enter The Dragon," Lee's only big-budget American movie. [12 May 1993, p.6F]

May be too sterile and stylized to elicit real tears, but it's got brains and heart to spare.

This movie is Denzel Washington stopping a speeding train devoid of subtext, blunders and earth-shattering revelations about the human condition. It is precisely as entertaining as it sounds; no more, no less.

Just misses living up to its name.

We're left with an impression of a vivacious pioneer; but warm shouldn't have to mean fuzzy.

Director Garth Davis gets to the heart of the drama without slipping into sentimentality.

What's most conspicuously missing from this ensemble is some input from the advertisers who subsidize Wintour's tyranny, and the readers who are seduced into buying her beautiful four-pound paperweights.

Director Dereck Joubert gleans a valuable thread that connects us to these endangered creatures.

The accents are thick, but if you listen closely you'll be well rewarded with smart, wry humor, peculiar but likable characters and a story that while slow in spots is altogether intriguing. [1 July 1989, p.E6]

The rare film that flows from a wellspring of ideas.

If you’re looking for a film that’s guaranteed to have you gripping your seat, this is It.

There are audiences for movies that amuse us, and arouse us, and scare us, but the career of Todd Solondz ("Storytelling") raises the question: Is there an audience for movies that make us feel icky?

It takes a while to rev up, but Blockers is often laugh-out-loud funny, thanks to the cast — you just wish they all had a little more to work with.

The fiery finale is good enough to leave the legions smiling. But when a movie is expected to lift an entire industry, "good enough" shouldn't be good enough.

Beirut is a solid political thriller that makes the most of St. Louis native Hamm, who is still best known for his starring role in TV’s “Mad Men.”

Arthur Christmas stays sweet without becoming overly sentimental and is filled with sly details and smart action sequences.

If you root for documentaries with heart, The Other Dream Team is a slam dunk.

Indeed, most of the famous faces are surprisingly adept at singing. Even when the actors are not lip-syncing (which seems to be about half the time), the dense, clever lyrics are intelligible.

It is, as it stands, a lavish creation. [13 Apr 1936, p.3C]